Contact: Maridith Geuder
An educational project developed by two Starkville High School teachers and three Mississippi State University researchers is attempting to restore a native grassland to its original state.
High school and college students are part of the effort that focuses on a 60-acre site located on 16th Section land in northeastern Oktibbeha County.
SHS teachers Sherry Wiygul and Kay Krans, who hold a 60-year lease on the site, are working with professors in the university's Center for Sustainable Design to devise a master plan for an eventual environmental study area.
"The idea began three years ago with a course we teach in biogeography," Wiygul said. "We wanted to develop an educational project that involved geography, biology, history, and art. We decided to create a course to study ecosystems and focused on a prairie and woodlands."
Found throughout the world, grassland prairies are characterized by an absence of trees and a diversity of plants, especially grasses. Many former grasslands in Mississippi have been degraded by agricultural overuse.
Popular with ninth-12th graders, the teachers' high school biogeography class takes students on site to learn about plant species and geographic diversity. Wiygul and Krans have identified vegetation zones, surveyed the site and marked boundaries and developed an extensive plant list.
To expand the possibilities for the site as an environmental study area, they turned to MSU faculty member Thomas P. Cathcart of biological engineering, Jonathan Pote of the MSU-based Mississippi Water Resources Research Institute and Pete Melby of landscape architecture. Also involved was graduating landscape architecture major Michael McNair of Starkville, who took on the project as his senior thesis. (McNair received his degree in May.)
A master plan for development of the area is the result of their combined efforts. The cooperative project is being supported, in part, by a Public School Partnership grant from Mississippi State's Office of Research. The team also will seek additional grant support.
"The team envisions the site as a permanent park that would include areas such as a buffalo prairie, a 14-acre wildflower prairie, a Native American prairie, and a grassland prairie," said Cathcart. "It would be the largest prairie effort in Mississippi."
Melby said the plan also calls for hiking trails, a nursery compost area and a reflection/education area. "The work could be done in stages and broken into project segments," he explained. "The students would learn the regenerative process as the site heals."
He said an initial question posed by the team-Why do so many cedar trees exist on a prairie site?-was answered in part by McNair's student research.
Looking at historical records and the firsthand accounts of early travelers, Melby said, "We learned that cedar trees were minor elements of a prairie landscape that become more prevalent as the landscape degraded."
McNair also researched the soil characteristics and learned that prairie soil is dependent on burning that occurs naturally from lightning. The grasses bounce back, but the invading plants don't.
With an historical understanding of how prairies work and a plan for the future, team members say they hope the planned site can sustain learning for generations of students to come.